Personality and Social Change: Individual Differences, Life Path, and ...

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1998, Vol. 74, No. 6, 1545-1555

Personality and Social Change: Individual Differences, Life Path, and Importance Attributed to the Women's Movement Lauren E. Duncan

Gail S. Agronick

Harvey Mudd College

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University of California, Berkeley

This article identifies antecedent characteristics of individuals who found the women's movement important and then shows how finding it important was associated with personality change. Eightysix women provided personality and life data as college seniors in 1958 or 1960, prior to the onset of the women's movement, and in 1981, after the movement gained momentum. A combination of openness, ambition, and dissatisfaction, as assessed by the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; H. Gough, 1957/1996) in college, and subsequent life path from ages 28 to 43 significantly predicted importance attributed to the women's movement (IWM). On CPI scales, IWM was associated with significant increases on scales including Dominance, Self-Acceptance, Empathy, Psychological Mindedness, and Achievement via Independence. Correlates of IWM with self-reported feelings at ages 33 and 43 and observer-based personality ratings at age 43 supplemented analyses of personality change. Findings support the utility of examining the impact of social change on personality.

effects on behavior and identity formation that vary systematically with life stage, \bung adults in the process of forming an identity, for example, are more receptive to change than more established adults, whose commitments to young children or building a career reduce the degree to which they are influenced (Stewart & Healy, 1989). Stewart and Healy's model has found empirical support (Duncan & Agronick, 1995; Stewart & GoldSteinberg, 1990). In this article, we investigated influences within a cohort that affected responsiveness to a specific social movement, the women's movement. There are many factors that might lead members of the same cohort to "experience and derive personal meanings from the same social experiences differently" (Stewart, 1994, p. 248). We are particularly interested in two such factors: individual differences in personality and role configuration, or lifestyle. Personality characteristics such as openness or flexibility would be expected to make an individual more receptive to new ideological possibilities engendered by social movements (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Role configuration might be expected to contribute to receptivity if the values of the movement supported the lifestyle or to make a person less receptive if the values seemed threatening or irrelevant (Stewart & Healy, 1989). Jennings and Niemi (1981) found that women with young children were the least receptive to cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to the question of which individuals were most and least receptive to social change, we were interested in the nature of a movement's influence on personality over time. We assumed that personality change associated with social movements would be greater for those persons who consider a movement personally important and that the general nature of this influence is to move the individual in the direction of the movement's values. In making this assumption, we kept in mind that such change would be shaped by the personality characteristics and life experiences that an individual brings to movement involvement (Magnusson, 1990; Scarr & McCartney, 1983).

The women's movement that emerged in the mid-1960s significantly shaped the socioeconomic, political, and psychological terrain of the United States (Buechler, 1990; Chafe, 1991; Evans, 1979; Fitzgerald, 1973). Although such social movements span a number of years and create climates with widespread effects, some individuals are more affected by cultural change than others. Which individuals are most affected, and what is the nature of the influence? Age, or more precisely, cohort membership, is one factor that affects which individuals are most influenced. By common definition, a cohort is a group of individuals of about the same biological age who experience the same social events within the same social context (Mannheim, 1928/1952; Rosow, 1978). The same event often influences different cohorts differently. Elder (1979, 1981) found, for example, that the Great Depression affected children and adolescents in divergent ways. Building in part on Elder's (1979, 1981) work, Mannheim's (1928/1952) writings on cohorts, and Erikson's (1968, 1975) theory of development, Stewart and Healy (1989) proposed a conceptual framework to study the links between social change and individual lives. They posited that the same social event has

Gail S. Agronick, Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley; Lauren E. Duncan, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Harvey Mudd College. This research was supported by Grant MH-43948 from the National Institute of Mental Health. Portions of this article were presented at the 103rd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York, New York, August 1995. We thank Ravenna Helson for the use of her data set and invaluable advice; Abigail Stewart, Jill Morawski, Christina Maslach, and Kenneth Craik for comments on the article; and Brent Roberts, Eva Klohnen, and Oliver John for statistical consultation. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gail S. Agronick, Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-5050. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected]. 1545

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Does personality change beyond young adulthood? Major dimensions of adult personality show considerable rank-order consistency over time (McCrae & Costa, 1990). However, this consistency is not absolute nor does it imply the absence of meanlevel change. Although the measurement of change presents many problems (Cronbach & Furby, 1970), much evidence indicates that personality does change through the adult years (e.g., Haan, Millsap, & Hartka, 1986; Helson & Stewart, 1994; Howard & Bray, 1988) and that social roles and cultural shifts are among the factors implicated (Helson & Picano, 1990; Howard & Bray, 1988; Roberts, 1997; Roberts & Helson, 1997; Stewart & Vandewater, 1993). We explored the interplay among lifestyle, personality, and social change within one cohort of women, members of the Mills Longitudinal Study (Helson, 1967; Helson, Mitchell, & Moane, 1984; Helson & Wink, 1992). This sample was particularly useful for our purposes because of its place in social history. Graduating from college in 1958 or 1960, participants entered the adult world prior to the profound societal changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Plans for the future were initiated within a social context that shifted radically within a very short period of time. Some women adhered to traditional values, whereas others saw the opportunity to develop in new ways. In our earlier work, we found a wide range of responses to the women's movement in this cohort—one third of the sample found the movement not at all personally important, another third found it somewhat personally important, and the remaining third found the women's movement very personally important (Duncan & Agronick, 1995). Women who graduated from college just a few years after the Mills sample launched their adult lives within a world with dramatically different views about women's roles and were more likely to find the movement personally important. Within one such cohort of women, less than one tenth of the sample found very little personal importance in the movement, whereas over two thirds of respondents found it very personally important (Duncan & Agronick, 1995). With the wider range of reactions represented in the Mills sample, we were able to examine individual differences in the receptivity to and the impact of this cultural change on individual lives. Tested initially during their senior year of college, the Mills women were contacted several times subsequently. Participants were asked about the personal importance of the women's movement in 1981, when they were, on average, 43 years old. Personality and life path data are consequently available both prior to and well after the movement gained momentum in mainstream American society. Two main issues were addressed in this research. First, do college-age personality and early adult life path distinguish women who found the movement personally important from those who did not? Second, is there psychological change associated with having found the women's movement personally important? In using the term personally important, we acknowledged, and tried to capture, the complexity of assessing the influence of social change. The women's movement, like other social movements, may be personally important in a variety of ways. Some women were never receptive to the women's movement, but for those who were receptive, expression of feelings about

and participation in the movement varied. Some women were active as early as the mid-1960s; others became involved later. Still others did not participate in organized activities or protests per se, but supported movement ideology, acknowledging the role it played in their life choices and sense of self. Then there were women who recognized the movement's influence on them and their life course but did not embrace the label feminist. In assessing the personal importance of the women's movement, we were interested in this full range of responses.

Characteristics of Supporters of the Women's Movement A number of articles, primarily cross-sectional studies published in the 1970s, delineated characteristics of supporters or advocates of the women's movement. Advocates in these studies were usually members of women's movement groups affiliated with universities, but most studies left unclear the nature of these organizations (e.g., whether participants were engaged primarily in political activism, consciousness raising, or both). Questionnaires were usually used to assess attitudes toward the women's movement in undergraduate student samples, though Cherniss (1972) conducted unstructured interviews with graduate students, working women, and full-time mothers, and Usher and Fels (1985) sampled married women between the ages of 40 and 50. This body of research informed our hypotheses about characteristics to be expected in women who found the women's movement personally important. Support for the women's movement has been associated with high levels of ambition, autonomy, and assertiveness (Cherniss, 1972; Goldschmidt, Gergen, Quigley, & Gergen, 1974). Reported to have high self-esteem, middle-aged women involved in the movement were found by Usher and Fels (1985) to be comfortable with themselves but unhappy with socioeconomic and personal opportunities open to them. Many women's movement participants believed that if discrimination were eliminated, women would be able to achieve their full potential (Stoloff, 1973). Eager to succeed professionally, supporters may have been actively searching for a life path different from that traditionally pursued by their female contemporaries (Goldschmidt et al., 1974). In fact, involvement with the women's movement was reported to follow a period of questioning of the conventional modes of female development (Cherniss, 1972; Usher & Fels, 1985). Not surprisingly, supporters of the movement favored changes in traditional sex roles (Mahoney, 1975). Behavior advocated by the women's movement presented a risk to which some may have had trouble accommodating: Women opposed to the movement, feminism, or feminists have been found to score higher on measures of authoritarianism, anxiety, and harm avoidance than those who supported it (Duncan, Peterson, & Winter, 1997; Haddock & Zanna, 1994; Sarup, 1976; Worell & Worell, 1977). Consistent with this picture, women's movement advocates were found to value being broadminded and imaginative, to have higher levels of ego development, and to be more self-actualizing than women who did not support the movement (Mahoney, 1975; Rozsnafszky & Hendel, 1977). These findings are somewhat hard to reduce, but some are

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IMPORTANCE ATTRIBUTED TO THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

more applicable to our study than others. We selected openness to change (lack of rigidity), dissatisfaction, and ambition as a core of characteristics that would have been likely antecedents to interest in the women's movement and to finding it personally important. We did not make hypotheses about some traits mentioned in the literature review because we lacked measures of them at age 21 (e.g., ego development). Though measures of dominance and autonomy were available, previous research in the Mills sample showed that individual differences in these characteristics (in relation to nontraditional life paths) were minor in college and only became important after our first assessment between young adulthood and midlife (Helson & Picano, 1990). Life Path and Receptivity to Social Change Although personality characteristics may contribute to individual differences in finding the women's movement personally important, divergent life priorities and commitments within the sample may have affected receptivity as well. People whose interests and lifestyle are reflected in the ideology of a social movement are more inclined to advocate or take part in the movement than those who do not see their ideas or life commitments supported (Jennings & Niemi, 1981; Stewart & Healy, 1989). In addition, individuals considering a shift in commitments, such as a homemaker reentering the workforce, may be particularly receptive to social change: For example, women [slightly older than the Mills participants] who raised children at home during the 1950s and early 1960s were sometimes moved by the women's movement of the later 1960s and 1970s to reconsider the structure of their lives—to go back to school, abandon a marriage, or find a career. These women sometimes reconstructed their worldviews, and their personal identities, in radical ways. (Stewart & Healy, 1989, p. 33)

Previous researchers classified the Mills participants into lifepath groups on the basis of cohort-specific patterns in the timing and focus of commitments to family or career (Helson, Mitchell, & Moane, 1984; Helson & Moane, 1987). Two main life paths were labeled the feminine social clock (FSC) and the masculine occupational clock (MOC). The FSC adherent's primary focus was on the family. The MOC adherent's focus was on maintaining an upwardly mobile career (though most women had families as well). Within these two main life paths, distinctions were made on the basis of time of initiation (early or late) and maintenance of adherence to a respective life path. Among patterns that these distinctions identify are those of women who maintained a primary focus on family from ages 28 to 43, those who maintained a primary commitment to building an upwardly mobile career from ages 28 to 43, and those who began with a primary focus on family but shifted after age 28 to an increased emphasis on work, establishing an upwardly mobile career trajectory and orientation by age 43. These life-path variables enabled us to test the receptivity to the women's movement of adherents to the homemaker and career patterns, as well as of those who shifted from a predominantly homemaker lifestyle to a careerist trajectory during the 1970s. We expected that those maintaining a commitment primarily to family would be least likely to find personal meaning

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in the women's movement, perhaps because they were unlikely to find their life commitments validated. In addition, those involved in raising young children may have found that the issues raised by the women's movement (e.g., sexual freedom and equal pay) were removed from their day-to-day concerns. In contrast, we expected that those with a focus on maintaining a career between ages 28 and 43 would be receptive, in part because movement activists advocated increased employment opportunities for women. Women working in upwardly mobile careers (largely dominated by men) would have found support and validation for their career choices and work experiences in the women's movement. Finally, we expected that women whose focus shifted from family to building an upwardly mobile career in the 1970s, when the influence of the women's movement was quite strong, would be the group who found the movement most personally important of all. Whether finding personal importance in the movement induced a shift in life priorities or whether a change in life focus prompted finding the movement important, women with newly established priorities in the paid labor force would have found much meaning in a movement that fostered questioning of traditional gender norms and advocated women's increased presence outside the home.

Effects of Participation in the Women's Movement on Personality Although there has been little longitudinal study of the effects of engagement with the women's movement on personality, cross-sectional studies using personality measures and retrospective reports suggest that those who found the women's movement meaningful changed psychologically through activities such as consciousness-raising groups. The movement empowered its advocates and provided opportunities for personal growth and self-actualization (Cherniss, 1972; Mahoney, 1975; Rozsnafszky & Hendel, 1977). Personal insights and reformation of self were attributed to critical evaluation of traditional gender role expectations, attitudes, and behavior (Cherniss, 1972; Stoloff, 1973). Activists reported feeling an increased solidarity with, and a greater understanding of, other women; they also reported increased self-esteem and reduced self-blame as a result of movement activity (Cherniss, 1972). In addition, supporters may have changed through taking advantage of the increased opportunities to develop high-status careers outside the home during the 1960s and 1970s. Such work is known to be associated with increased gender consciousness (Gurin, 1985) and successful functioning (Helson, Elliott, & Leigh, 1990; Kohn & Schooler, 1978; Roberts, 1997), including skills necessary to achieve in work environments requiring initiative and autonomy. Why did involvement in the movement spur personality change? One potent factor may be the group processes inherent in much movement activity (Cole & Stewart, 1996). The goal of consciousness-raising groups, for example, was to shift the cognitive focus from passive acceptance, self-blame, and feelings of isolation from other women to self-development, social support, and group action (Brodsky, 1973; Downing & Roush, 1985; Peskilis, 1970). Interpersonal trust was developed on the basis of the view that a woman's struggles in society were not primarily the result of her individual intrapsychic difficulties but

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rather a result of the challenges she faced in a limiting social structure. Sharing experiences with others and reading feminist writings empowered women to develop a more differentiated view of the factors that motivated others to maintain the status quo, to persevere and show initiative in the face of discrimination, and to resist social norms and expectations. In conjunction with this perspective, women were encouraged to develop a sense of self beyond the social roles of mother and wife (Brodsky, 1973). We expected, then, that women who found much personal meaning in the women's movement would have increased in social poise and assurance, resistance to social norms, and complexity of outlook, which includes a greater understanding of other women and gender roles.

Overview This study investigated two questions. The first asked what antecedent personality characteristics and life-path factors were associated with finding the women's movement personally important at midlife. On the basis of the literature on supporters of the movement, Mills participants who were ambitious and capable, open to new ideas, and dissatisfied with the opportunities available to them upon college graduation were expected to have been most affected by the women's movement. The life path a woman followed is also expected to have influenced the degree to which she found personal meaning in the women's movement—women who focused on family should show the least influence, those who maintained a career path between ages 28 and 43 should show more influence, and those who switched from commitments primarily in the home to a career in the workforce during the 1970s should show the most influence. The second question addressed whether finding the women's movement personally important was associated with personality change. We expected finding the women's movement personally important to be associated with personality change in the direction of increased confidence, initiative, self-esteem, and complex understanding of others. We also expected it to be associated with an increased questioning of social norms, and for those in upwardly mobile careers, increased high-level achievement skills, such as the desire and ability to work independently. To complement our change analyses, we studied feelings about life experienced by participants in their early 30s and 40s, especially feelings regarding gender roles. We also presented observer-based personality descriptions of the women as they were perceived at midlife, expecting individuals who found the women's movement personally important to have been viewed by others as open, ambitious, and dissatisfied as they were at age 21 and as confident, connected, and engaged by the ideas and the possibilities of the movement as they became over time. Method

Participants and Overall Design of Study In 1958, and again in 1960, a representative two thirds of the senior class (N = 141) at Mills College participated in a study of personality characteristics and plans for the future among college women (Helson, 1967). They were contacted again, primarily by mail, at approximately ages 27, 43, and 52 (Helson et al., 1984; Helson & Wink, 1992). The women were predominantly White, Protestant, and middle-class.

The two times of testing included in this study are labeled ages 21 and 43, respectively. The sample consisted of 86 women who completed personality inventories at both ages 21 and 43 and extensive questionnaire material regarding their work, relationships, attitudes, and feelings at age 43. Analyses have shown that attrition effects tend to be small in the Mills sample. Women who completed the CPI at both ages 21 and 43 differed at age 21 from those who would drop out of the study after this first assessment on only 1 of the 20 scales: They had higher scores on the Communality scale, f(137) = 2.04, p < .05. Dropouts thus felt more marginal or alienated than women who stayed in the study. These two groups did not differ at age 21 in work or family plans for the future, though the women who dropped out had lower SAT scores and lower grade point averages. We also compared women who, at age 43, completed both the CPI and the section of materials that included the women's movement question with those who completed the CPI but did not answer this specific part of the questionnaire (which came late in the battery and was somewhat optional). The 86 women who provided responses to the women's movement question differed on only 1 of the 20 CPI scales from those who did not: They scored higher on the Socialization scale, ((105) = 2.77, p < .01. Presumably, women who completed all of the materials, were more conscientious than those who did not complete the entire assessment packet. No differences were found in marital status, number of children, total amount of time spent in the labor force, or status level of paid employment among women who did and did not answer the section that included the question about the women's movement.

Measures Importance attributed to the women's movement (IWM). As part of the age-43 questionnaire, the women were asked to respond to the following question: "Have you taken part in the women's movement? If so, in what ways? If not, are there ways in which you think that you have been affected by it?" Responses were coded on a 3-point scale. A reply was scored as a 1 (no personal importance) if there was evidence that the women's movement had no impact on the person's life. For example, one woman wrote, " [ I ] have not taken part in it. I think that all the ballyhoo is silly." A response was coded as 2 (some personal importance) if there was evidence that the women's movement had some, but not extensive, impact on the person's life. If the woman considered the movement significant, but was not actively involved, she received a score of 2. For example, a participant replied, " I have not taken part, but the results [of the women's movement] have given me more self confidence." To receive a score of 3 (much personal importance), a response had to state that the woman was quite affected by the movement or to mention political activity related to women's rights. For example, one individual wrote, " I have been active in establishing a Women's History Week. . . . My relationships with women have changed—we have a support group. I have also changed my ideas on rearing children as a result of the women's movement. I want my daughter to have the choices I felt I didn't!" As reported by Duncan and Agronick (1995), 30 women (34.9%) received a score of 1; 28 women (32.5%) received a score of 2; and 28 (32.5%) received a score of 3. The mean rating for the sample was 1.97. Interrater reliability for the two coders was .93. The California Psychological Inventory (CPI). The CPI (Gough, 1957/1996) is a widely used inventory that includes 20 scales with themes of social poise and assurance, norm adherence, and achievement potential. Among these are several that were particularly suitable to test our hypotheses. First, we expected that women who found the women's movement important would have been open to new ways of thinking, alert to new opportunities for success, and dissatisfied at age 21. The CPI Flexibility scale is an appropriate measure of desire for change,

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IMPORTANCE ATTRIBUTED TO THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT variety, and new ways of thinking (which should include an openness to alternative roles and modes of behavior). The Capacity for Status scale assesses ambition, breadth of outlook, and skills leading to increase in status. The Well-Being scale, which assesses an individual's current life satisfaction and future outlook, as well as her sense of emotional and physical health, was used to test dissatisfaction. Those who score moderately low on this scale are described as " . . . not entirely comfortable with themselves or their social supports" (McAllister, 1986, p. 14). For the second question in our research, we constructed expectations about how IWM was related to personality change from ages 21 to 43. It is best to use caution when hypothesizing that particular CPI scales will show change and others will not—much depends on the initial scores of the women and their intervening experiences and environments, both those common to most of the sample and those affecting subgroups. In general, we expected increases on measures of social poise and assurance, decreases in some aspects of norm adherence, and increases on measures of complexity of understanding others and high-level achievement skills. Among measures of social poise and assurance, the most obvious choices were Dominance, which assesses initiative, confidence, assertiveness, and sense of direction; Self-Acceptance, which measures self-approbation; and Empathy, which is not a measure of sympathetic attitudes, but of sophistication and active involvement in understanding others. Among measures of norm adherence, some scales assess deeply ingrained characteristics, whereas others measure more fluid orientations that are more likely to change. A decrease in Good Impression (concern with presenting oneself favorably) from 1958/1960 to 1981 would reflect a resistance to norms about women's self-presentation as agreeable and accommodating. To assess complexity and objectivity in understanding others, we chose Psychological Mindedness, and to appraise highachievement skills, such as the ability and desire to work independently, we chose Achievement via Independence. Life path variables. Previous work by Helson and her collaborators described a set of life-path trajectories (social clock projects; see Helson et al., 1984; Helson & Moane, 1987) in the Mills sample. Two main projects were labeled the Feminine Social Clock (FSC) and the masculine Occupational Clock (MOC). Adherents to the FSC had partners and children by age 28, intact marriages at age 43, and if these participants worked, low-status or temporary jobs rather than upwardly mobile careers. Followers of the MOC were women who had an upwardly mobile career at both ages 28 and 43 (though most had families as well). Another pattern consisted of FSC-MOC shifters, participants who started out in traditional roles (adhering to the FSC) but initiated a career after age 28 and were maintaining an MOC project at age 43. Of 86 women, 22 were coded as FSCs (primary focus on family), 18 as MOCs (central commitment to career), and 8 as FSC-MOC shifters. The other 38 participants started a family later than the sample norm, initiated a family or career project but did not maintain it, or never established either of these projects. Clear predictions about IWM could not be made for these remaining participants. For example, women who began families late did so for divergent reasons (such as waiting for their partner to finish professional school, having problems with fertility, or delaying children in the interest of their own career), which had different implications for their vested interest in the women's movement. Status level in work. To assess career success, we used ratings of status level in work (Helson, Elliott, & Leigh, 1989). Ratings of the amount of autonomy, responsibility, training, and talent required in the woman's work were made on a 7-point scale. Interrater reliability for the two coders was .96. Feelings about life. At age 43, the women rated each of 40 characteristic "feelings about life" on a 3-point scale (3 = very descriptive, 1 = not at all descriptive). In addition, they rated these same feelings retrospectively, as they had experienced them about 10 years previously (Helson & Moane, 1987). The items were selected from theories of

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adult development, including those of Gould (1972), Levinson (1978), and Neugarten (1968), and some were intended to reflect attitudes associated with the women's movement. Previous work (Helson & Moane, 1987) has shown that the Mills sample as a whole reported feeling more confident and effective (e.g., "feeling more confident," "influence in my community or area of interest") and less vulnerable (e.g., "feeling weaker and less competent than others"; "feeling I will never get myself together") in their early 40s than 10 years previously. Though this perceived change in social and personal empowerment was relevant to the present study, the 3-point scale imposed a ceiling effect, which makes it difficult to discriminate the influence of the women's movement from that due to broader processes of normative development. Some items in the set of feelings about life concerned gender roles specifically, and more variation in response to these items was represented within the sample. Here, our general expectations were that IWM would be related to negative attitudes toward traditional gender roles ("feeling angry at men and masculinity"), increases between the early 30s and early 40s in feeling a connection with women ("feeling women are more important to me than they used to b e " ) , and experiencing an expanded consciousness (e.g., "discovering new parts of myself"). CAQ personality descriptions based on archival data. The California Q-sort (CAQ; Block, 1978) consists of 100 items that provide a comprehensive description of personality functioning. The items are sorted by raters, using a forced normal distribution, to describe an individual. In the Mills study, judges based their ratings on extensive questionnaire data collected at age 43. Reliability of the Q-sorts was satisfactory (Wink, 1991). The raters saw no inventory scores, but their material did include responses to the question about the importance of the women's movement. Because there were about 35 pages of information on the participants' lives since college, including responses about partners, divorces, children, parents, work, and health, the influence of a paragraph or two about the women's movement on the raters' placement of Q-sort items was quite minor. We expected that the raters' descriptions of the women in their early 40s would be consistent with a picture of women who were open, ambitious, and dissatisfied as college seniors, subsequently stimulated by the ideas and the possibilities of the women's movement, and able to use its influence to raise their consciousness and gain a sense of empowerment.

Analyses To study personality and lifestyle predictors of importance attributed to the women's movement (IWM), ratings of IWM were first correlated with CPI Capacity for Status, Weil-Being, and Flexibility scale scores at age 21 and with each of the social clock project patterns. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was then performed to show the combined effects of antecedent personality and life path on reported importance of the women's movement at age 43. Capacity for Status, Well-Being, and Flexibility scores were entered together in Step 1, and three dummy variables used to code for life path were entered together in Step 2 of this analysis. These dummy variables were used to code for the three life paths for which we had hypotheses in comparison with a fourth group of trajectories for which clear predictions could not be made. The three variables were computed as follows: traditional lifestyle (FSC = 1; otherwise = 0 ) ; career commitment between ages 28 and 43 (MOC = 1; otherwise = 0 ) ; and shift from traditional lifestyle to career commitment (FSC at age 28 to MOC by age 43 = 1; otherwise = 0 ) . To study personality change associated with IWM we again used hierarchical multiple regression to determine whether reported importance of the women's movement was associated with personality change from ages 21 to 43. Scores at age 43 on the six CPI scales considered most likely to show change were the criterion variables. To assess person-

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ality change associated with IWM controlling for the influence of age21 personality, we entered scores on the respective CPI scales at age 21 in Step 1; we then entered IWM in Step 2. In secondary analyses, we controlled for both age-21 personality and status level of work before entering IWM in a third step. IWM was correlated with two sets of the women's self-report of feelings about life; the first set was descriptive of themselves in their early 40s, and the second recalled at that time as having been descriptive 10 years earlier. Finally, to show distinctive features of personality associated with IWM as the women were viewed by others, IWM was correlated with the items of the Q-sort descriptions made by file raters. Because hypotheses related to feelings about life and Q-sort descriptions were stated somewhat abstractly, we used the .01 level of significance in reporting results.

Results Who Found Personal Meaning in the Women's Movement? IWM was significantly correlated with CPI Flexibility at age 21 (r = .22,p < .05, N = 85) and showed correlations significant at the trend level (p < .10) with Capacity for Status and Weil-Being (rs = .21 and - . 1 8 , respectively). In addition, IWM showed correlations of -.24 (p < .05, N = 86) with having initiated and maintained a traditional lifestyle and of .25 (p < .05) with having shifted from a traditional lifestyle to a career commitment. Correlations with other social clock project patterns, including a continuous career commitment between ages 28 and 43 (r = .15) were not significant. Table 1 reports the regression analysis used to predict IWM from age-21 personality and the life-path variables. Scores from the Capacity for Status, Well-Being, and Flexibility scales, entered together in Step 1, produced a significant multiple regression coefficient of .38. These results provide support for the hypothesis that women who found the movement personally important would have been open to new ideas, ambitious, and dissatisfied at age 21. The combination of these three characteristics predicted reported importance of the women's movement much more strongly than any one characteristic considered separately.

Table 1 Antecedent Personality and Life Path as Predictors of Importance Attributed to the Women's Movement Variable Step 1 Flexibility Well-Being Capacity for Status Step 2 Traditional lifestyle (FSC) Career commitment (MOC) Shift to career from traditional lifestyle

r

.22*

?

-,18t •21t

.15 -.24 .18

-.24* .15

-.12 .12

.25*

.22

R

R2 change

.38

.14**

.47

.08*

Note. Scale scores are from the California Psychological Inventory (CPI, Gough, 1957/1996) obtained from the sample at age 21. N = 85. FSC = feminine social clock; MOC = masculine occupational clock. a Beta weights in final equation. t p < .10 (marginally significant). * p < .05. ** p < .01.

Table 2 Change in Personality From Ages 21 to 43 Associated With Importance Attributed to the Women's Movement

0* Age-43 CPI scale Social poise and assurance Dominance Self-Acceptance Empathy Norm adherence Good Impression Other scales Achievement via Independence Psychological Mindedness

Age-21 CPI scale

Women's movement

R

R2 change

.52 .26 .43

.27 .34 .38

.61 .45 .61

.07** .11** .14**

.45

-.14

.48

.02

.34 .35

.25 .25

.43 .42

.06* .06*

Note. R2 change indicates the additional percent of variance explained by entering importance of the women's movement in Step 2 of the analyses. N = 84. CPI = California Psychological Inventory. • Beta weights from the final equations are reported. *p < .05. **p < .01.

The addition of the social clock project variables, introduced at Step 2, significantly increased the multiple regression coefficient from .38 to .47. These results indicate that antecedent personality and subsequent life path each significantly predicted who reported the women's movement to be personally important and that the combination of these two variables was a stronger predictor of reported importance of the movement than either variable alone.

Was Finding the Women's Movement Important Related to Personality Change? Change on the CPI from ages 21 to 43. Table 2 reports the results from hierarchical regression analyses to predict changes in personality associated with reported importance of the women's movement. The six scales on which change was predicted are shown in Table 2. Age-21 personality, entered in Step 1 of each analysis, was a significant predictor of age-43 personality on all scales, reflecting the stability of personality between these two age periods. IWM was entered in Step 2 of each analysis. The R2 change column in Table 2 shows the percent change in the total amount of variance explained by the addition of IWM. Significant change in personality attributable to IWM (after controlling for the influence of age-21 personality) was shown by increases on Dominance, Self-Acceptance, and Empathy, the scales we had selected from the social poise and assurance category. Psychological Mindedness and Achievement via Independence also showed significant increases after IWM was entered in Step 2. However, the hypothesis that decrease on the Good Impression scale would show a significant association with IWM was not supported. The relative contribution of antecedent personality and IWM to age-43 personality for each of the CPI scales is reflected in their respective beta weights, as reported in the final regression equations. Antecedent personality and reported importance of

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IMPORTANCE ATTRIBUTED TO THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

the women's movement each significantly contributed to age43 personality on five of the six scales.1 We speculated that the relation between IWM and decrease in norm adherence was not significant because the demands of challenging careers were leading many women to increase rather than decrease on such measures (Roberts, 1997). (Status level of work shows a correlation of .30, p < .01, with IWM in the Mills sample.) Additional regression analyses in which both age-21 personality and status level in work were controlled produced results that supported this hypothesis: With the influence of status level of paid employment removed, quite similar results were obtained for Dominance (R2 change = .04, p < .05), Self-Acceptance (R2 change = . 10, p < .01), and Empathy (R2 change = .11, p < .001), but there was now a significant association with amount of change on Good Impression (R2 change = .04, p < .05). However, the relations between IWM and increases on Achievement via Independence no longer reached significance, and Psychological Mindedness was only significant at the trend level {R2 change = .03, p < .10). Thus, the pattern of personality change that was associated with IWM depended, in part, on the work experiences of subgroups within the sample. Feelings about life in one's early 30s and early 40s. Correlations between IWM and feelings about life are presented in Table 3. As hypothesized, women for whom the movement was most important recalled feeling angry toward men and masculinity in their early 30s. In their early 40s, they reported feeling powerful, connected to other women, still dissatisfied with men and masculinity, and engaged in processes of self-discovery and expanded horizons. Q-sort descriptions of the women at age 43. Correlations between IWM and CAQ items are presented in Table 4. As expected, descriptions by raters were consistent with a picture of women who were open (e.g., negative correlation with "favors conservative values in a variety of areas"), ambitious ("has high aspiration level for s e l f ' ) , and dissatisfied (negative correlation with "is subjectively unaware of self-concern; feels satisfied with self"), all characteristics associated with IWM at age 21. High scorers on IWM showed evidence of an ability to have

Table 3 Correlations of Importance Attributed to the Women's Movement With Feelings in Participants' Early 30s (Retrospective) and Early 40s (Concurrent) Feelings about life Retrospective Feeling angry at men and masculinity Concurrent: Empowerment and gender issues Feeling powerful Feeling women more important to me than they used to be Feeling angry at men and masculinity Concurrent: Self-discovery and change Discovering new parts of myself Anxiety that I won't live up to opportunities Interest in things beyond my own family Note.

Women's movement

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used the movement's influence to raise their consciousness (e.g., "has insight into own motives and behavior"). They had a sense of empowerment (e.g., "values own independence and autonomy") at midlife. Finally, raters saw those who found much personal importance in the movement as expressive, nonconformists (e.g., negative correlation with "is emotionally bland, has flattened affect"; positive correlation with "tends to be rebellious and nonconforming''). Discussion We asked two questions in this research. First, who found the women's movement personally important? All Mills study participants, regardless of subsequent life path, entered the adult world a few years before the movement began. Yet all members of the study were not influenced by it to the same degree. Personality characteristics at age 21, a combination of ambition, dissatisfaction, and openness, significantly predicted reported IWM at age 43. The life path a woman followed also affected the degree to which she reported the women's movement to have been important. We found that women who were primarily homemakers between ages 28 and 43 regarded the women's movement as least important and that those who initiated a career after age 28, during the peak years of the movement, regarded it as most important. The combination of antecedent personality and life path was a much stronger predictor of reported movement importance than either of these two factors alone. Our second question examined how finding the movement personally important was related to personality change between ages 21 and 43. We assessed consistency and change using a standardized inventory, first prior to the onset of the women's movement and again well after the movement gained momentum in mainstream American society. Antecedent scores on CPI scales predicted personality at mid-life, reflecting the expected rank-order consistency of these characteristics. There was also the expected evidence of personality change. Consistent with cross-sectional analyses of retrospective data reported in the literature, finding the movement personally important was associated with increases in social poise and assurance, including increased confidence, initiative, and self-esteem, as well as with increases sophistication and active involvement in understanding of others. These results indicate that importance of the women's movement was associated with increased empowerment from college graduation to midlife. IWM was also associated with increases in the desire and ability to work independently and in the ability to understand self and others from a complex, objective vantage point—skills particularly useful in high-status careers. The expected relation

.48 .41 .40 .33 .32 .31 .29

All correlations significant at p < .01 are shown. iV = 83.

' Besides the scales shown in Table 2, IWM was associated with significant change on all other measures of social poise and assurance: Capacity for Status (R 2 change = .04, p < .05), Sociability (R2 change = .05, p < .05), Social Presence (R2 change = .09, p < .01), and Independence (R2 change = .05, p < .05), but not with change on any other CPI scale (six measuring aspects of norm adherence and four measuring aspects of achievement potential). These results indicate that IWM was associated with a broad-band increase in what can be called social empowerment.

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AGRONICK AND DUNCAN Table 4

Correlations of Importance Attributed to the Women's Movement with Q-Sort Items at Age 43 Women's movement

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Q-Sort item Openness Favors conservative values in a variety of areas Handles anxiety and conflicts by, in effect, refusing to recognize their presence; repressive or dissociative tendencies Is uncomfortable with uncertainty and complexities Is concerned with philosophical problems; e.g., religions, values, the meaning of life, etc. Is moralistic Ambition Has high aspiration level for self Dissatisfaction Is subjectively unaware of self-concern; feels satisfied with self Raised consciousness Has insight into own motives and behavior Able to see to the heart of important problems Is introspective and concerned with self as an object Evaluates the motivation of others in interpreting situations Empowerment Genuinely submissive; accepts domination comfortably Values own independence and autonomy Gives up and withdraws where possible in the face of frustration and adversity Expressiveness, nonconformity Is an interesting, arresting person Is emotionally bland; has flattened affect Tends to be rebellious and nonconforming Judges self and others in conventional terms like popularity, "the correct thing to do," social pressures, etc. Thinks and associates to ideas in unusual ways; has unconventional thought processes Is verbally fluent; can express ideas well Note.

-.48 —.47 -.35 .31 -.30 .38 -.30 .52 .41 .40 .30 -.35 .34 -.31 .42 -.42 .37 -.37 .33 .29

All correlations significant at p < .01 are shown. N = 85

between importance of the women's movement and increased resistance to social norms over time was not supported. However, in secondary analyses which controlled for the influence of status level of work on personality change, importance of the women's movement was significantly associated with a decreased desire to present oneself favorably, and skills particularly associated with career success were no longer significant. These analyses suggest that the pattern of personality change associated with finding the movement personally important depended, in part, on the environmental presses experienced by subgroups within the sample. Demands of challenging careers were leading many women to increase, rather than decrease, in norm adherence over time (Roberts, 1997). Self-reports of feelings at age 43 (1981) and retrospectively at age 33 (1971) add to the above mentioned personality change findings. Women who found the movement most important described themselves as having been frustrated with women's role in society in the early 1970s, a time at which the movement was quite strong. In 1981, at age 43, these women reported feeling powerful, connected to other women, still dissatisfied with traditional gender roles, and engaged in a process of selfdiscovery and change. In addition, observers' descriptions of the women in their early 40s were consistent with a picture of women who were open, ambitious, and dissatisfied as college

seniors and able to use the influence of the women's movement to raise their consciousness and gain a sense of empowerment by midlife. One would not necessarily expect the strength of the results that we have reported. One potent contributor to our findings may be the interpersonal processes central to much movement activity (Cole & Stewart, 1996). Informal discussions and organized activities, such as consciousness-raising groups, promoted a cognitive shift from passive acceptance of women's traditional roles, self-blame for structural problems, and feelings of isolation, to resistance to sexism, self-development, and connection with other women (Brodsky, 1973; Downing & Roush, 1985; Peskilis, 1970). The personality changes, feelings, and Q-sort findings all reflect this psychosocial reorientation. The magnitude of our findings may also rest on the fact that the women's movement challenged the worldview of some members of the sample, leaving others unaffected. This cohort, women born in the late 1930s and early 1940s, entered adulthood with clear ideas about the future that were based on the goals and values of the 1950s. ' 'Marriage and family were the cornerstones on which nearly every women's life plan was erected" (Helson, 1993, p. 193). Most women expected to work after high school or college, but usually for a limited time, until they married or had children. Yet the lives of three fourths of the

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IMPORTANCE ATTRIBUTED TO THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

Mills women turned out differently from their college-age expectations (Helson, 1993). For women who entered the adult world on the cusp of the values of the 1950s and 1960s, it was possible to either continue to embrace the ideology of the 1950s, or to question it. For cohorts younger than that of the Mills sample, it became increasingly more normative to question, and possibly eschew, the 1950s model of women's priorities. Because the Mills sample engaged in the tasks of young adulthood during the transitional years between two radically different views of women's roles, individual differences in antecedent personality and life path became potent predictors of IWM. Women who were open to new ideas and alternative lifestyles, dissatisfied with normative gender roles, and ambitious to succeed questioned women's traditional roles and found the women's movement most important; others, who adhered to the FSC, fulfilling the expectations of the 1950s, found it least important. Yet it is also important to recognize some limitations of this study. The women's movement was one factor in an admittedly complex world. Other social movements, such as the fight for civil rights and protests against the Vietnam War; secular trends, such as the increase in individualism; economic changes; and demographic shifts also shaped the country's sociopolitical landscape. We, of course, cannot account for the whole network of influences in this research. In addition, the longitudinal design of our study does not allow us to draw causal conclusions from our results. One could argue that it is possible that women who were flexible, ambitious, and dissatisfied at age 21 would have shown the reported personality changes by age 43, regardless of exposure to the women's movement. Although the women's movement was not the sole factor contributing to personality change within the Mills sample, similar patterns of empowerment are not found in all cohorts. For example, Helson, Stewart, and Ostrove (1995) found that integrated searchers, individuals characterized by high aspirations for self, independence, and flexibility in outlook, did not show the same degree of realization across three cohorts of women. Integrated searchers who were in their 40s in the early 1950s (the oldest cohort) lacked the challenge and outside validation from careers that became progressively more accessible to those in the younger two cohorts. Whereas evidence supports the general accuracy of the Mills women's retrospections (see Harker & Solomon, 1996; Helson & Wink, 1992), the ratings of the feelings that they attributed to themselves in their early 30s may show some retrospective bias (McFarland, Ross, & Giltrow, 1992; Woodruff & Birren, 1972). Even if they contain bias, these self-recollections would seem to constitute an important part of the women's life narratives. Because participants were in their early 30s during the early 1970s, a time when the women's movement was quite strong, these retrospective accounts help to assess its emotive importance. It should be noted that the influence of the women's movement was not simply to accentuate in its adherents the increase in social poise and assurance often associated with adult development from young adulthood to midlife (Haan et al., 1986; Helson & Moane, 1987). The empowerment associated with IWM emphasized feeling good about oneself (Self-Acceptance) and actively connecting with others (Empathy). The Mills sam-

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ple as a whole did not increase significantly in these two respects. The largest increases in measures of self-assurance for the sample as a whole were on Dominance (confidence, initiative, and sense of direction) and Independence (self-reliance). How general are the implications of our findings? It may usually be open, dissatisfied, and ambitious people who are influenced by new ideas and prospects. In addition, advantaged individuals, such as our college-educated, primarily White, middle-class sample, may be more likely to have the socioeconomic resources necessary to be agents and beneficiaries of social change. Some of the studies of the student protest movements of the 1960s reported psychological and demographic findings similar to ours (Flacks, 1967; Keniston, 1967). On the other hand, different social movements may attract different supporters. For example, although Black and White women participated in both the civil rights and women's movements, significantly more White than Black women participated in the women's movement, and significantly more Black than White women took part in the fight for civil rights (Cole & Stewart, 1996). In addition, social movements and cultural climates differ in the particular aspects of personality they affect. Whereas the women's movement empowered its advocates and increased their identification with other women, the culture of individualism increased the self-focus (narcissism) of those it influenced (Roberts & Helson, 1997). The essential point is that individual differences do influence receptivity to social movements, and social movements do influence personality change. Recently, personality and social psychologists have been paying increased attention to the influence of broader societal change on psychological processes. Some have asserted that it is necessary to link social change to individual lives to understand personality development more adequately (Stewart & Healy, 1989). In such analyses, attention is paid to the intertwined nature of historical period, cohort membership, and psychosocial life tasks (Duncan & Agronick, 1995; Elder, 1979, 1981; Giele, 1993; Helson et al., 1984; Helson & Picano, 1990; Helson et al., 1995). Yet consideration of such issues runs "counter to the stability bias implicit in much social psychological research, where it is frequently assumed that particular effects are applicable across age groups and historical periods" (Ryff, 1987, p. 1200). We hope to contribute to a revitalization of a societal psychology that explicitly explores the relationship between sociohistorical context and psychological processes (Himmelweit, 1990). To our knowledge, ours is the first longitudinal study to describe antecedent personality characteristics and lifestyle associated with personal importance attributed to the women's movement and to explore psychological outcomes of investment in it. We hope that these findings underscore the feasibility and value of including an analysis of the broader social context (political climates) in investigations of personality consistency and change.

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Received January 24, 1997 Revision received May 20, 1997 Accepted June 3, 1997 •